For those that may have tried League of Legends, I’ll tell you my favorite champions so far.  I tend to stick with tank characters, soaking up the damage and throwing a stun or heal out there every so often.

My favorite champion has to be Tryndamere.  He’s a bit more of a damage dealer than tank, but I just really like his play-style.  He can attack heavily and critical hit often, has a minor (MINOR) self heal, a spinning slash attack that is good for hurting enemy players, destroying waves of minions, and escaping, a shout skill that weakens and slows enemy players, and finally a last resort skill that makes him unable to die for a few seconds, perfect to finish off someone or escape.

My second favorite is Alistar, the minotaur.  Alistar is a true tank, with high armor and health.  It’s fun to play him because his skills let you push lanes with minions, healing them, and then destroying enemy turrets.  His skills consist of an area of effect stun, a damaging headbutt that sends players flying, a short area heal, and a last resort skill that removes debuffs, increases armor, and increases attack power for a few seconds.  He’s fun to soak up damage while your teammates unleash everything onto the enemy players.

So again, I recommend you guys check out the game and maybe sign up for the beta!

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

Here are some videos I found, courtesy of 1UP.com and Gametrailers.com, enjoy!

I want shelves, dammit!

It’s a weird thing to be jealous of, but I’ve always really envied people who post pictures of their big beautiful shelves full of their games and accessories. I have the games, I have the accessories, but they’re kind of banished to the depths of places they can’t be seen. Since I still live at my parents’ house during the summer, it’s not something that’s easily fixable. I’ve suggested getting some neat shelves a few times–and my parents are pretty open-minded about my nerd tendencies–but there just isn’t room in here. I’m almost ridiculously excited about the little shelf that I’ll be getting at college. It’s supposed to be used for… you know, things you use at college. But nay, I say! I’ll throw my books in the closet or something. Who wants to display those, anyway?

Whenever I’m asked about what kind of place I’d like to get after college, I only give two requirements: shelves, and cats.

Yeah. My future is bright.

So, my first encounter was when I was checking my bag in to the airline. I was wearing my knee-high red Converse, so a guy started asking me where I got them, because his daughter might want a pair. After our conversation, the guy who was actually checking my bags admitted that he wanted to know where I got my shirt, because it was awesome. I told him I’d got it when I went to the Nintendo Store in New York, and that I actually didn’t know if you could get it online. He thanked me, that was done, I went on my way.

Encounter two was when I was checking into security. The guy checked my ID, while eyeing my shirt, and as he handed it back to me he asked if my shirt was a Zelda shirt. I confirmed that for him, and he started asking me questions about which game it was from, etc, and I answered him. His response to this was, “Well, it’s a little odd, but you can pull it off ’cause you’re cute.” I’m pretty sure a 30-something year old guy just hit on me. For someone like me, who’s general friendliness is shot straight to full-blown shy awkwardness the second an advance is made on me, that’s basically the starting shot on a race to get the hell out of there. So I quickly and flusteredly thanked him and scurried off post-haste.

Then there were some guys in security who stole my freaking shoes right out of the bin I’d put them in and were showing them off to each other, but that has nothing to do with my shirt.

Then, as I walked through the terminal I was getting lots of winks and nods from guys about my age who were clearly pointing at my shirt, getting the reference. I just nodded and smiled and hurried on to my gate.

Getting on the plane, people were eyeing and smiling at my shirt, nodding at me as I made my way through the aisle to my seat.

Got off the plane and hurried through the airport to my connection flight’s gate. Sitting there, an entire group of middle school or high school aged kids were checking out my shirt and smiling.

And then from there, the flight attendant commented on it as well.

I’ve always known that gaming traversed states, countries, and continents, but I had no idea that a gaming symbol could garner so much attention in one day just from walking through an airport. I love seeing fan-love for things I like, and I enjoy meeting others who love what I love… but I somehow don’t think I’ll be wearing my Portal shirt home after that experience. Sometimes, a girl just wants to be left alone with her DS. And not get hit on by men almost twice her age.

Let me tell you, for all of you who might’ve been skeptical of the Wii Motion Plus or Wii Sports Resort, they definitely deliver.

I’m just going to go through a basic rundown of each sport.

Swordplay:

This is probably the sport everyone has been looking foward to the most.  I know I fall in that boat.  Swordplay has three modes: Duel, Speed Slice, and Showdown.  Duel is pretty straightfoward, you fight another Mii, whether it be player or computer, one on one.  The goal is to knock the other Mii off the platform and into the water (whre they fall in sloooow motion, it’s pretty funny).  Speed Slice can also be played with either another player or a computer.  A referee throws random objects at both of you and the goal is to cut the object in the direction that the screen indicates correctly and before your opponent.  Finally, Showdown, my favorite, is a single player mode where the player fights hordes of Miis in a number of different levels.  Basically, it’s an on-rails slash-fest.

Swordplay is ridiculously accurate with the motions you perform, clearly they achieved the 1:1 motion they promised.  You can perform all sorts of slashes and also guard against oncoming slashes.

Wakeboarding:

Wakeboarding puts your Mii on a wakeboard behind a boat and tasks you with jumping off the waves, doing tricks, and landing them in order to get points.  You control the direction your Mii travels, time the jumps from the crests of the waves, and you also balance the wakeboard in order to land the points.  You control wakeboarding with the wiimote on its side.

Wakeboarding is my personal favorite sport of the water sports.

Archery:

My second favorite sport next to Swordplay, archery has you shooting targets for points.  The closer to the bulls-eye, the more points you score.  Archery is controlled with the wiimote and the nunchick.  You aim with the wiimote and pull back and let go with the nunchuck like it’s the bowstring.

Frisbee:

Frisbee feels very close to the real thing.  I know this because I’m terrible at both.  Frisbee comes in two modes: Frisbee Dog and Frisbee Golf.  Frisbee Dog has you throwing the frisbee with the goal of landing it in a target on the sand.  Once again, the closer to the bulls-eye, the more points you score.  Firsbee Golf is like normal golf except you throw a frisbee instead.

Basketball:

I honestly don’t have much experience with basketball.  I tried it once and couldn’t get the hang of it.  That’s not to say the controls were bad, I just wasn’t very interested.  Basketball comes in two modes: 3-Point Contest and Pickup Game.

Power Cruising:

Another water sport, power cruising has the player use the wiimote and the nunchuck like the bars of a jet ski, flicking them foward to accelerate and moving them to turn.  Power Cruising comes in two modes: Slalom Course and VS.  Slalom Course has players race to go through the rings in the best time while VS is a one on one race.

I found the controls pretty accurate, but man was I terrible at this one.

Cycling:

Cycling puts your Mii on a bike, with you controlling the pedaling by alternating the wiimote and the nunchuck up and down.  Cycling comes in two modes: Road Race and VS.  Road Race puts you and up to one more player on the same bike and has you race against many computer Miis.  VS is a one on one race.

Cycling is considered to be the worst sport.  I don’t really mind the idea of it, but it is really tiring.

Golf:

Golf is just like the sport in the original Wii Sports, only more accurate with the Wii Motion Plus and with more courses available.

Table Tennis:

Table tennis is just like the real thing.  You control the paddle with the wiimote and it is very accurate, it feels completely natural.  Tables Tennis comes in two modes: Match and Return Challenge.  Match is a one on one game, while Return Challenge has you returning as many serves as you can to get points.

Bowling:

Bowling is also exactly the same as the original Wii Sports for the most part.  Bowling comes in three modes: Standard Game, 100-Pin Game, and Spin Control.  Standard Game is the bowling we all know and love.  100-Pin Game is a bowling game with 100 pins instead of 10.  Spin Control is a bowling game with random barriers on the alley, some stationary and some moving.

Canoeing:

Canoeing is the last water sport.  You control the paddling, holding the wiimote like a real paddle with two hands.  Canoeing comes in two modes: Speed Challenge and VS.  Speed Challenge has you and other players in the same canoe paddling to reach the goal before the time runs out.  VS mode has you racing to go through checkpoints before your opponents do.

Canoeing, like Cycling, can also get very tiresome.

Air Sports:

Air sports is controlled with the wiimote held like a paper airplane.  Air Sports has three modes: Skydiving, Island Flyover, and Dogfight.  Skydiving has your Mii jump out a plane and skydive.  As you fall, you can grab hold of other Miis and form a chain of skydivers.  A picture is then taken of you and you gain points.  Island Flyover has your Mii in a plane exploring Wuhu Island and getting information on landmarks.  Dogfight once again puts your Mii in a plane only this time you fight another player!

Needless to say, Wii Sports Resort is alot of fun and a very good example of the Wii Motion Plus’s power.  I only hope future Wii games can also manage to take advantage of the Wii Motion Plus.

For those that don’t know, Leage of Legends is a competitive online game from Riot Games that is similar to DOTA, the custom map from Warcraft 3.  The basic premise of the game is to choose a “Champion” and then defend your base alongside your teammates while also pressuring and attacking the enemy team’s base.  Champions level up as they kill minions (auto-spawn NPCs that serve to attack the opposing team), creeps (neutral monsters on the map), and Champions from the opposing team.  A game is won by defeating the nexus of the opposing team.

I played a few rounds this weekend and I was overall pleased.  The gameplay in League of Legends takes place in an RTS-esque view and has a graphical style that seems like a cross of Warcraft 3 and the new Prince of Persia.  There is a vast array of Champions, including assassins, archers, melee damage dealers, tanks, mages, and support classes.  Each Champion has its own feel with unique skills available to them as they level up.  As you score kills, you also accumulate gold coins which you can then use to purchase equipment for your Champion, strengthening them.  I mainly stuck with melee damage dealers in the few games I played, and tended to focus my gold coins on buying items that increase my attack speed and offer me life-stealing.  I wasn’t very good at fighting other players, I usually got destroyed by archers or mages, but I did manage to help my team by sneaking by and damaging the enemy’s structures.

I had fun during my short time with Leage of Legends, though playing on the same map did grow stale after a while (only one map was available for beta play).  I haven’t heard of a release date yet, but I have heard that League of Legends will be free, to play and to download, with a collector’s edition available in retail for purchase, which simply unlocks some things for players automatically instead of having to unlock them over time.

Check out the game’s site for more info and a chance at a beta key: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

So ANYWAY, onto my thoughts of the game! (very VERY minor spoilers)

The one thing that stuck out in my mind (and well, any fan of FFV) is the job system. I’m a sucker for Final Fantasies that allow you to change your characters’ jobs, I mean, I did play Final Fantasy XI for like five years. I definately appreciate this job system more than that of Final Fantasy III’s, where each character had skills only relevant to their current job. Final Fantasy V let you learn abilities from jobs and then equip some of those abilities on other jobs. For example, I would learn White Magic from being a White Mage, and then change over to Summoner and equip White Magic, so I had a Summoner who could deal alot of damage with her summons and still support the party with white magic. It was great, the system was very deep, customizeable, and rewarding, even by today’s standards. It was fun to mix and match interesting combinations. As a side note, the new jobs added in the GBA version turned out to be fun, but not completely worth the effort.

The story of Final Fantasy V wasn’t ridiculously complex, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It didn’t seem as focused as Final Fantasy IV, but it never really bothered me or seemed as random as many older RPGs like the first three Final Fantasies or early Dragon Quests. I personally liked the cast of characters. Bartz says the ridiculously stupid and hilarious things, which I’m hoping the writers intended to be a sort of “LAME funny” than actually “REALLY funny”. Lenna was a more laid back, somber character who always seemed determined. Galuf was a crazy old man who also offered alot of funny moments. Faris was a ragtag lady that had an adventurous and caring spirit.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the game and it was a very satisfactory size, what with three different world maps and all. I can easily see how this Final Fantasy, like many others, is also a classic (though I’m still not sure why the SNES version never came stateside). I definitely recommend it.

Last year, my gaming scene at college was a little sparse and unvaried. My college’s internet is stuck in the stone age, so online gaming (PC or console) was completely out of the question. I wouldn’t call myself a social gamer, so this didn’t affect me too heavily (with the exception that it largely charged my decision to quit/extended hiatus from Final Fantasy XI for the last year or so). But internet or no internet, college is going to affect gaming in one way or another; and it isn’t just the workload and responsibilities that cut down on it.

Last year, I lived in a small, close-knit dorm (though I’m not exactly sure you could call it that small… it was three floors with a good number of rooms on each floor, but compared to universities, it was pretty tiny). I got pretty close with a lot of the people on my floor (because, magically, the college seemed to lump the nerds together), and this lead to a lot of late night hang-outs and daily visits. As one of our friends brought his Xbox 360 to college, we wound up naturally gathering around it wherever it went, begging to borrow games from anyone in the building who would let us. After blazing through Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty: World at War, Left 4 Dead, Bioshock, and Dead Space, we realized that we needed a more substantial way to keep our game library up… and a joint subscription to Gamefly was born. But social gaming isn’t the topic of this post; this post is about the un-social side of games, the side that tends to experience a drought when you’re living around a group of people actively interested in (or even not interested at all in) video games.

I am a single-player gamer. Despite my long and robust career in Final Fantasy XI (as a party-dependent White Mage, no less), this is an undeniable truth. I tend to always ignore online multiplayer (with exceptions, such as LittleBigPlanet), and I’m not all that competitive multiplayer-wise. I’ll gladly have a gamerscore war with my friends, but I take no joy in mowing them down in multiplayer. For me, the richest and best developed parts of games (despite what may actually be the truth) is always the single-player. That’s where I thrive, that’s where I find my joy, and that’s what I buy games for. There’s little I love more than coming home, curling up in something comfy, and spending a few hours gaming… alone.

The college atmosphere isn’t incredibly conducive to this. I mean, you’re living with your friends. There will always be someone who wants to hang out, spend time together, go somewhere, do something… and it doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for gaming. I found the answer to this in handhelds. When heading to a big group hangout, I’d often drag my DS along to mess around on while we hung out and chatted. Some game that didn’t require intense concentration and left me open to being social while playing it — like Pokemon, was a perfect way to keep working on my backlog while being social. But sometimes, the itch bothers you so much that you need to scratch it and the need for a good, lush, single-player experience starts to drive you mad. This was probably my biggest gaming problem the entire year.

Now, I know there’s a lot of mixed feelings on backseat gaming. Some people enjoy playing games with others or watching someone else play a single-player, and some people can’t stand one or both of them. Me? I’m situational. There are certain times that I’ve got some busy work to do and I love kicking back and watching someone else play; there are times where I’m playing a goofy game (such as Saints Row 2) and welcome a crowd to give me some ludicrous suggestions; and then there are times when all I want is sweet silence and a beautiful video game score playing in my ears.

Loving the roommates in my apartment like I do, I don’t want to hermit into my room and never see them while I grind away on some games. I want to be out, involved, playing with them. The thing is, that I play games quite a bit, and two of my lovely ladies aren’t into the gaming scene at all. Having me hogging the TV with something they care little to nothing about would be both rude of me and uncomfortable for them… so hiding in my room while I game becomes a necessity at times. From the opposite perspective, we have a few friends in our building who are absolutely notorious for their backseat gaming (which drove me so far up the wall with Fallout 3 that I stopped playing it altogether), and hiding in my room to get some peace in my story-heavy epics becomes a necessity for me to be happy. So despite my intentions to be social, I will wind up as a hermit either way. While it’s not something I want to do, it’s pretty much the only way to keep my favorite hobby from alienating everyone else (and to stop visitors from alienating me).

I’ve been trying to think of ways around this–ways of balancing things out so that I can play games both alone and with others. I figure, I need to separate things by genre and get weigh-ins from my roommates as to what would be okay to play on the living room TV. More lists!

1. I guess the most obvious one: What level of violence are they okay with? Alotta blood, a little blood, no blood at all? I don’t want to whip out Bioshock if they aren’t okay with slightly disturbing imagery.
2. What would they actually like to see? Would they like to watch the story mode of one of my games (assuming we had a “no backseat gaming” rule in place), or would it just be a nuisance that’s taking up the TV?
3. Would they be interested in playing multiplayer games with me? Single-player games are my favorite, but I’m not adverse to playing multiplayer either, especially if we could pick up some fun ones. Unfortunately, my budget is tight since my job ended, but I’m sure we can figure something to split the cost on to throw on the Wii or something.
4. How much time are they okay with me being on the TV? I like everyone, and I’m a fairly social person (though I do value my alone time, too) and I like being around people. If I could get an hour each day to play in the living room, I’d feel less like a recluse when I move my gaming into my room.

And thus, “Operation: Keep Gaming While Making Sure No One is Alienated” begins! Kind of a weird goal, but that’s how I roll.

At the beginning of this summer I began working the position of a temp employee at a company, but I was working Mon-Fri, 8-10 hours a day. Since I can’t maintain a consistent job like this at college and am perpetually poor (yay, overloading my own class schedule!) having money kind of blew my mind, and I felt like I wanted to make my first purchase worth it, so I picked up a PS3 (which I have never regretted for a second, by the way) kind of on a whim after I got my first paycheck. I also pre-ordered the Dissidia: Final Fantasy PSP bundle, since the PSP finally has enough games I’m interested in to merit picking one up. Since then, I’ve slowed down quite a bit and have been spreading my paycheck-spending out, and that’s going to be especially important now… since I don’t have a job anymore.

Well, that’s not entirely correct. I still have a job, but I’m no longer full time. I’m more of a part-timer (or really, a “sporadic timer”) because I finished the duties of my temp position. I’m still technically an employee and have been doing minor work for them for the past couple of days from home (or I guess, from vacation), but I’ll be getting my last official paycheck for the summer tomorrow. Luckily, they’ve asked me to work for them again long-distance from college in the fall, so I should be getting paid again… but for now, I’m working off of whatever I was able to make during this summer (which was less than anticipated, because I lost two entire weeks to swine flu). But I’m gonna make it stretch until I start getting paid again… the only problem is, I’ll have more expenses then as well.

When I’m not in school (i.e. summer, winter breaks), I stay at home with my parents, who are willing to pick up my food tab (as long as I don’t go overboard, but considering how little I eat, that’s not really a problem). This makes life a lot easier because I’m not worried about stretching my money from one week to the next. There was an actual crisis last year where the school was going on vacation and my parents didn’t want to buy me a train/plane ticket to get home just for one weekend, so they told me to use my own money to transport myself to a friend’s house. I wound up going broke and overdrawing my bank account, and a fiasco ensued. I was mortified and bogged down with the problems this caused for weeks, and I’m determined to not let it happen again.

Here’s the issue: last year I was a freshman, lived in a freshman dorm where everything was pretty much centralized. I could walk 30 seconds to the dining hall or a minute to the campus restaurant and pick up some free food at each. I also wasn’t allowed to have a car, so gas was never an issue. This year, I’m going to be sharing an apartment with three wonderful ladies, and am going to be much farther from the food, much closer to an area where a car would be a good idea, and much more prone to buying groceries and making dinner myself, since suddenly I’m interested in being healthy. All of these things add up to spending more money.

As someone who enjoys collecting games as well as playing them, I don’t really want to give up buying them altogether, especially with so many wonderful titles on their way into existence! So it’s time to set the rules of game purchasing, budgeting, and figuring out a way to continue collecting while still being able to buy the groceries.

1. Figure out the monthly earnings. Estimate hours spent working my long-distance part-time job and any campus job I manage to pick up. Don’t overestimate; if anything, shoot low.
2. Figure out groceries for the month. I’ve never lived in an apartment situation before, so I don’t know how much one typically spends on groceries. I’m also not sure how cooking meals is going to work: do we cook for ourselves, or do we cook for everyone? I’m assuming that it’ll be the former, since my apartment-mates all have extremely varying tastes, eating habits, and times at which they prefer to eat. After a month or so of buying groceries, I should have a fairly good handle on how expensive I’m going to be. Budget this out of the monthly earnings.
3. From here, budget out some “emergency money”, because trust me, it happens. Emergency medicine, all-nighter food, anything can be an expense. Try to keep at least $25 set aside at all times, and don’t freaking touch it.
4. Figure out what my unique expenses for the month are going to call for. Are any of my clubs taking trips? Am I going to have to pay for a shuttle to the airport? Is there a convention on the horizon? Make sure I don’t go broke again from unexpected, but possible things.
5. REMEMBER THE THINGS THAT CHARGE ME MONTHLY. This was what dug my grave and buried me last year. I forgot that I’m a GameFly subscriber (even better, I didn’t know what day they tended to charge on), and it was the final straw to overdraw me. As a subscriber to GameFly, and LiveJournal, keep track of this stuff! Don’t let those expenses go unseen.
6. After the monthly budget has been worked out and every possible situation has been covered, scoop the remaining money away into the game fund.
7. Buy games in bulk. A lot of sites nowadays have deals for free shipping if you spend over a certain amount, make use of it. Even if I’m not going to land a free-shipping deal, buying more games is more effective, particularly if they get shipped together. The same shipping cost will cover more of them.
8. Remember to pre-order. If I care about something, pre-order order it, assuming I have the money. If I’m good on money for the month and go ahead and pre-order something, and put all of the money down for it right then (fortunately, there’s a Gamestop within driving distance), I don’t have to worry about paying for it later. This will stop me from spending the money on games I might not care as much about, and it means budget-disasters (a lot of travel, etc.) won’t prevent me from getting the games I covet most.
9. DON’T BE STUPID. I don’t have to spend all of my extra money each month on games. I’m a poor college student and I already have a massive backlog of games I have to play. I don’t NEED new games every month (unless “Bio” happens to be in its title or in its developers name, I’M SORRY), and for every month that I hold off on buying new games, I get to roll that cash over into the next month. Time is money, and I don’t have a hell of a lot of time at college… so don’t spend like an idiot. Choose my battles wisely.

I’ll be keeping a running record of my budget and game purchases once the year starts, because I think it’ll be pretty interesting at the least to see how well I can pull off not sucking at money management. Growing up is fun; it doesn’t have to be full of pain and being broke if I can work up the responsibility. Wish me luck!